Coffee Fight in Crown Heights

It’s not quite at the level of Paradou owner Vadim Ponorovsky versus his staff, but the Times detects some tension from two new coffee shops on Franklin Avenue in Crown Heights. One, the Pulp and the Bean, is owned by a longtime neighborhood businessman. The other, Breukelen Coffee House, is run by newcomers to the area. The coffee shops, separated by only two blocks, entered into an online confrontation (the Times fails to credit the originating blog), and the Pulp and Bean owner went so far as to say to his competitors that he would “buy your coffee machines in about eight months when you decide to close up.” The owners of Breukelen Coffee, perhaps wisely, didn’t respond online and were not quoted in the story.